Regardless of the type of vacuum cleaner involved, however, any vacuum cleaner which includes a filter presents the problem that the filter will become progressively blocked with dust and dirt as the vacuum cleaner is used. This has the disadvantage of lowering the rate of air movement (i.e. volume of air moved per unit time) through the vacuum cleaner by obstructing the airflow during operation of the vacuum cleaner, thereby also reducing the overall cleaning efficiency of the vacuum cleaner. Accordingly, in order to ensure the continuing efficient operation of the vacuum cleaner, it is necessary for a user to clean the filter from time to time. In its most basic form, this means that the user manually removes the filter from the vacuum cleaner, washes or otherwise cleans it, and then replaces it back in the vacuum cleaner. However, this has the disadvantage that it requires the user to handle the dirty filter in order to clean it. A filter cleaning mechanism which, avoids this problem is therefore preferred to such manual cleaning.